


What Happens at the Round Up

by turnonmyheels



Category: Friday Night Lights, Real Person Fiction
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:51:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnonmyheels/pseuds/turnonmyheels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after his dad leaves, a month after his mom finds her way to the bottom of a bottle and disappears forever, and a week after Billy comes home to take care of him, Tim finds a beat up Gibson in the attic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens at the Round Up

A year after his dad leaves, a month after his mom finds her way to the bottom of a bottle and disappears forever, and a week after Billy comes home to take care of him, Tim finds a beat up Gibson in the attic. He can't remember ever seeing it before and wonders where it came from. The face and neck are the color of molasses. The sides, round and shapely like a woman, are cherry, and the back is so scratched up he can't tell if it's molasses or cherry or something else. There aren't any strings and the pearly dots along the neck are mostly missing. The tuning pegs look old -- really old -- yellow and a little brittle.

He picks it up, holds it in his hands and it feels ... right. Not football right, but maybe like it'll fit his hand longer than a football. Even at thirteen he knows nobody plays pro ball for long. The average career is only three and a half years. Some only get one season and most ... well, most don't make it past high school Varsity.

He carries it carefully down the hide-away steps and takes it to Billy. "Look what I found!"

Billy looks up from the pile of small appliances spread across the kitchen table and the list he's making and squints at the guitar. "Huh. That might bring in a couple bucks. Where'd you find it?"

"I'm not gonna let you sell it!" Tim tightens his grip on the guitar, a mulish expression on his face.

"If you want a new pair of cleats, you don't have a choice." Billy's voice is gruff and he looks old and worn out.

Tim clutches the guitar to his chest and sits in the chair beside Billy; he practices strumming on invisible strings. "Whatever."

"You wanna go to Bubba's with me?"

Tim lifts a shoulder and follows Billy and the microwave out the door. He carefully rests the guitar behind the truck seat and goes inside to help Billy with the TV from their parents room, the blender, a mixer, a record player, and the Playstation and all the games Billy had brought with him when he moved back in. "The Playstation too?" Tim hates asking, hates the whine in his voice.

"Fucking sucks, but yeah. Bank's gonna foreclose soon if I can't get some money together and then we won't have a place to live, much less to play video games." When Billy's face scrunches down like that and they take another load of stuff to Bubba's, Tim wishes he'd never called Billy to take care of him. He wishes he could have stayed at Jason's house forever, but then he feels bad 'cause really, he'd rather be with his family, messed up and broken as it is, than pretend to be part of somebody else's.

They make the drive across town to Bubba's Gun, Bait, Pawn, and Music. Tim's always liked Bubba's store. There're thousands of really cool things to mess with tucked away in corners, high up on dusty shelves, and even though Bubba was one of their dad's friends, he's still a good guy. He gave Tim his first taste of beer, back when he was eight, and that makes Bubba a hero in his book.

"Bubba!" Billy calls as he wrestles the microwave through the door. "I've got some more stuff."

Tim dashes off to the instruments first thing, like always. He's been wanting a guitar forever and thinks the one he's clutching is way better than anything Bubba's got for sale. That decided he heads toward the bait; if he's lucky they'll be there long enough to take down all the guns and play with them too.

"Billy, you can't keep selling off your stuff one piece at a time." Bubba's voice is low like thunder and today there's something else in the words. It's not the first time Bubba's said that and Tim thinks he's getting tired of repeating himself.

There's a thud as Billy sets the microwave on the counter and his sigh carries all the way across the store. Tim's checking out the night crawlers and crickets, wondering who finds them and brings them to Bubba to sell.

"I know it's not the plan of the year or anything Bubba, but what the hell else am I supposed to do? I can't find a job that pays good enough to catch up on the mortgage."

"You're supposed to take some help from your friends." Bubba claps Billy on the shoulder and steers him toward the back of the store to the office. "Can you keep an eye on things for me, Tim?"

Tim snatches his hand away from the frog he's been poking and stands up straight. "Yes, sir." Tim -- and his guitar -- go to stand behind the counter and Bubba's guitar is sitting there, waiting there for someone to play it. He picks it up, strums it a few times, and tries to pick out a song. By the time Bubba and Billy come back up front he's worked out something that might be a chord or whatever they call it, and Billy's face looks easier than it has since he came back home.

Bubba hands Billy the telephone and turns his attention to Tim. "Think you could let me have a look at that guitar you've got?" Tim nods and sets Bubba's back on the stand where he found it before handing over his own.

"I remember when your grandpa gave this to your daddy. It always had a real sweet sound, but Walt could never make it sound any better than a cat in heat." Bubba's putting strings on the guitar, his motions deft and smooth as if it's something he's done thousands of times before. "You know how to find night crawlers and frogs and other such stuff I sell for bait?"

"Yes, sir." Tim nods and studies Bubba's actions as he twists the tuning pegs and plucks the strings.

Bubba strums the guitar a couple times and makes a few more minor adjustments. "You bring me a bucket of something every Saturday morning and I'll show you a chord or two, how to pick out a tune." He hands the beat-up guitar to Tim. "You take care of this old lady now and it'll last you the rest of your life."

"Yes, sir." Tim holds onto the guitar like it's something precious. "Thank you, sir."

Billy hangs up the phone and comes over to join them at the counter. "Bubba, I …" Billy starts, but Bubba holds up a hand and stops him.

"Your daddy and your mama both fucked you boys over." Tim looks down at the toe poking through his sneaker and tries to hide his blush behind his hair. "I figure this is the least I can do. You show up for work on time, sober, and work your ass off, Billy, and the house will be fine."

They shake on it and Billy starts working at Bubba's brother's -- and another of their daddy's drinking buddies -- garage the next day and stays there for the next two and a half years. Tim starts gigging frogs or digging for night crawlers Friday nights after the game and has a free guitar lesson every Saturday morning until he decides it's more important to get plastered and play with girls than it is to mess around in the dirt.

By then Bubba's sold the store off to his cousin Larry and Tim's learned everything Bubba had to teach him. He keeps Melissa -- his guitar -- next to his bed. He never takes her anywhere, never plays her for an audience, not even Billy or Jason. Melissa, and the songs he plays, are something just for him, something that he never even thinks of sharing with anyone else.

Until the night he meets Chris Kane.

~*~

Tim's been going to the Round Up with Billy late on Saturday nights since he was fourteen. So long as Billy didn't slip him beer -- before he turned sixteen and got his first fake id -- the bouncers didn't have a problem with him being there. Dillon doesn't have much in the way of night life or clubs, but more than a few bands play warm-up gigs there before going to Austin, or tail-between-their-legs gigs after they get laughed out of Austin.

The guys that are playing tonight -- Chris and Steve -- have played the Round Up a dozen times or more over the past year or so. Sometimes they have a full band, but most times it's just the two of them. Drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, picking up or fending off girls, and having what looks to Tim, like the time of their lives.

Tim's sitting on his usual stool at the end of the bar. He's facing the audience, arms spread along the scarred and pitted wood, the heels of his boots on the bottom rung of the stool, legs splayed wide, cold bottle of beer between them, taking in the music, the crowd, and the guys. Tim likes them. Chris and Steve. Likes their smoke-roughened voices, how he can relate to their songs, the obvious friendship between them, how Chris is quick with a joke and Steve seems kind of shy. He even likes them when it's obvious they're pissed at each other. They can still harmonize, can still play off of and with one another without the audience -- or at least those who haven't seen them as many times as he has -- knowing something's off.

Something's off tonight. Chris is drinking more than he usually does and Steve has had a cigarette lit all night. One of the girls in the audience screams out "I love you, Lindsey" -- something Tim can't figure out for the life of him, who the fuck is Lindsey? Chris flips her off, sets his guitar down, and walks to the bar.

"Whiskey."

Lucy, the bartender, doesn't ask what kind. She pulls a bottle of Johnny Walker Black down off the shelf and pours Chris a triple. He throws back half of it while Steve starts playing one of his solo songs, and Tim wonders if maybe that's the problem. Chris lights a cigarette and drinks the rest of the whiskey, holding the glass out for a refill. Lucy fills it up and slides Tim another beer.

"Thanks, Lucy." Tim hands her the empty and settles back against the bar, toe tapping in time to the love song Steve's playing.

"That a State ring?" Chris asks and taps the ring on Tim's left hand.

"Yeah."

"I think we were in town right after y'all won it." Chris sips the whiskey and lights a cigarette.

"Yeah."

Steve finishes the song and goes straight into another, not giving the audience time to hoot and holler.

"You gonna play college?"

Tim looks at Chris and realizes he's trying to make conversation so he turns around on his stool and answers honestly. "I had a couple offers, but my grades weren't good enough to get in."

"The hell you say."

Tim lifts a shoulder and studies his beer. "Yeah. I never could get a high enough SAT score and we don't have the money for a fancy prep school to get me there."

"Huh." Chris taps his cigarette on the ashtray and is quiet a moment. Steve's singing about love and loss and Tim wonders if he ever writes songs about anything else. "All I ever wanted was to play ball. I never had the size." Chris throws back the rest of his whiskey and grins ruefully at the empty glass. "Thought I'd get that glory playing music. Or acting." He drags on the cigarette again before crushing it out in the ashtray. "Still a C-list actor and a B-list musician. Can't believe I'm playing this dive again."

"Hey man, Willie Nelson's played this dive." Tim drains his beer then motions for another. "It can't be all that bad. Most times you look like you're having the time of your life."

"When you're on and the audience is right there with you, yeah." Chris jerks a thumb toward Tim's beer and holds up two fingers. "You play?"

"What?" Lucy slides them both a beer.

"Calluses on your fingers."

Tim looks at the fingers wrapped around his beer, the calluses edging the tips and wonders how Chris noticed and why he _likes_ that Chris noticed. "Yeah."

"Then you know what I mean." The audience starts clapping and Chris turns toward the stage, puts two fingers in his mouth whistles loud and shrill then claps along with them. Tim joins in and Steve says thank you and talks a bit before starting a new song.

"Never played for nobody before." Tim peels the label from his beer and picks at the glue left behind.

"You're shittin' me."

Tim shrugs a shoulder and swigs his beer. Chris doesn't say anything for a while, just drinks his beer and smokes another cigarette. One of the girls from the audience bellies up to the bar and tries to catch Chris's eye but he ignores her. She shoots him a dirty look and stomps off after Lucy gets her a beer.

"You ever think about it?"

"Most people 'round here would tell you I never think about anything."

Chris grins at him and Tim feels something go tight down low in his belly. "Didn't answer my question."

He finds himself leaning toward Chris and smiling a bit. "Maybe." Steve finishes another song and Chris spins around on his stool so they're both leaning with their backs against the bar, watching the crowd and the stage. "Makes me nervous, just thinking about it."

Chris stretches both arms along the bar, fingers brushing the shoulders of Tim's checkered shirt; he leans toward Tim a bit and Tim feels that tightness turn into a tingle. He's not stupid about everything, he knows when somebody's hitting on him.

"What you gotta do, is think of it like it's football. The band is your team and as long as you're in it together, it'll all be all right." Chris stands then, dragging that hand along Tim's shoulder as he leaves to go back up onstage.

Tim finishes his beer and another while Steve and Chris wrap up the set. The tingle gets stronger and turns into a full-on ache when Chris makes eye contact with him throughout their last song. He drops a twenty on the bar for Lucy and heads toward the stage. "You need some help packing up?"

"No thanks, man." Steve smiles up at him, closes the lid on his guitar case and stands. "You riding with me?"

Chris turns to Tim and looks him up and down. The ache turns into a throb and Tim puts his hands in his pockets to give his dick some room. "I know a couple places."

"I'll see ya tomorrow, man." Chris slings his guitar over his shoulder and turns to Tim. "What kind of places?"

"The quiet kind."

~*~

"Didn't figure your house was where we were headed."

Tim shrugs. "Nothing else is open but the Landing Strip. It's not a lot of fun watching your ex's sister and most of your brother's ex's take off their clothes." He digs around in the fridge and pulls out a couple beers and a box of pizza. "Hungry?"

"Could eat."

They settle on the couch drinking beer and eating cold pizza. SportsCenter is on and Chris cusses when he sees the Yankees won again. The pizza is long gone by the time SportsCenter is over, Chris fiddles with his guitar, feet up on the coffee table looking like he's spent his entire life in Tim's living room.

"You wanna play a little?"

Tim swallows his beer and thinks about that. Does he? What if Bubba lied to him and he's not any good? What if he is good, but fucks up in front of an audience? He feels like a deer caught in headlights -- unable to move, unable to even think. Chris sets his guitar on the floor and leans toward him. He squeezes Tim's knee with one callused hand and looks Tim in the eyes. "I promise I won't make fun. It's just a little pickin' between friends."

Tim can't help but laugh at that. "You don't even know my name." Chris squeezes his knee again and the semi Tim's been sporting since the bar grows a bit more.

Chris cracks that crazy grin at him. "Go get your guitar, we'll start out with a classic."

Tim stops off in the bathroom and wills his hard-on away so he can piss. By the time he's settled on the couch and tuning Melissa to Chris's guitar he's feeling comfortable. Chris brings them a couple more beers and angles toward Tim on the couch. He strums the strings and starts to sing, "Well I was drunk, the day my ma got out of prison."

Tim laughs and picks up mid-verse. They play for a couple hours, a few songs everybody knows, Chris sings a little, but mostly they just riff off one another. Tim plays rhythm mostly, the few times he tries lead Chris grins at him, "that's it son, you got it," and follows along.

It's the most fun he's had since the football season ended and he wonders why he's never played with anyone before. They play until the sun's nearly up then go outside and sit by the pool while Chris smokes another cigarette and rolls a joint. They're passing the joint back and forth, shoulders rubbing, and it's good. It's damn good.

"You wanna?" Chris breathes in his ear. Tim turns to him, grateful for the invitation and licks at the seam of Chris's mouth. Chris opens up and lets him in.

It's nothing like kissing a girl. But it's not awkward and weird like it was that one time with Jason either. Tim thinks maybe it's all the beer and whiskey and pot, or maybe just that Chris knows what he's doing. Chris slides his tongue inside easy and rough all at the same time. Bites on his lips and doesn't bitch when he gets bitten in return. Chris shoves him down and the cement's not the most comfortable place he's had sex but it'll do.

Chris gets their jeans open and they're stroking each other; Tim bites down on Chris's shoulder and rolls him over when he hisses. Tim thrusts up into Chris's hand, jerking him steady, and nibbles along Chris' throat before sinking his teeth in on the curve on his neck.

"Watch it, son." Chris warns and bites back, right on Tim's Adam's apple and rolls them back over.

"Watch it yourself."

It's a competition after that, who can jerk who the hardest, the fastest, who can last the longest. Tim loses that game, goes off first, shooting over Chris's plaid shirt with a grunt. Of course, by the time he gets Chris off and they both clean up, Tim's hard again and ready for more.

"Damn I miss being that young." Chris laughs and wraps his hand around Tim easier this time and circles the head of Tim's dick with his thumb.

Tim thrusts up into Chris's hand and shakes his head. "Naw, man. This's all it's good for." Chris bends over and licks up the length before taking Tim in his mouth. He swallows around him before pulling off and sucking on the tip. "Get ready," Tim warns as he grunts and fucks in a few more times. Chris pulls off as he comes again.

"Hope you last longer than that when you're fucking." Chris smirks and washes his hands off in the pool.

Tim's too relaxed to take offense -- he can last as long as he wants usually, Chris is just intense, more than he's used to. He zips up and finds the forgotten joint and lights it back up. They pass it between them until it's gone. "You wanna crash here?"

Chris stands and grins down at Tim, gives him a hand up. "Might as well. We're playing tonight. You could join in if you want."

Tim's eyes go wide and his heart starts thundering in his chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Chris scratches his belly and heads toward the house. "Not promisin' you a job or anything, but you could join in. Steve won't mind."

"You sure?"

"Sure enough."

Tim strips down to his boxers and stretches out on the bed. "You can stay in my brother's room if you want, he's out of town. Can stay here, too."

Chris takes off his shirt, kicks off his shoes, and drops his pants. Tim chuckles when he realizes he's not wearing any underwear. Chris flops down on his belly, bunches the pillow beneath his head and looks at Tim. "What _is_ your name?"

Tim elbows Chris in the side and rolls over. "Tim. Tim Riggins."

Chris pulls Tim's hair until Tim looks over at him. "I'm Chris. Chris Kane. Nice to meet ya."

They both chuckle a bit at that and eventually fall asleep.


End file.
